Improvement in sewing-machine needles



A. O. CAREY.

Sewing-Machine Needle.

Patented June 25, 1878.

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N.PETERS, FHOTO-LITHOQRAPHER, WASHINGTON. I10

UNITED STATES PATENT, OEEIoE.

AUGUSTUS C. CAREY, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPROVEMENT IN SEWING-MACHINE NEEDLES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 205,243, dated June 25, 1878; application filed February 12, 1878.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, AUGUSTUS C. CAREY, of Boston, county of Suffolk, State of Massachusetts, have invented an Improvement in Sewing-Machine Needles, of which the following is a specification:

This invention relates to sewing-machine needles; and consists in providing the needle with a thread-cutting portion at its shank or part against which the holding-screw operates, just below the end of the needle-bar.

Figure 1 represents, in side elevation, a needle containing this invention, the needle being held in a needle-bar; Fig. 2, a cross-section thereof at the dotted lines, Fig. 1; Fig. 3, a modified form of cutting-edge; Fig. 4, a modilied form of cutter attached to a collar fitted upon the needle-shank; Fig. 5, a needle with the cuttin g-edge projected beyond the diameter of the shank of the needle; Fig. 6, a needle with a cutter set into its shank; and Fig. 7, a modification, showing the needle-shank notched to form a cutter.

The sewing-machine needle herein described is and may be of any usual construction. Such a needle, at or near its upper or shank portion 12, or that portion which enters an opening in the needle-bar c, where it is held by a set-screw or other needle-holdin g device, is provided with a thread-cutter, d. This thread-cutter is placed upon the needle-shank far enough from the point of the needle so as notto enter and out the material being sewed, and a slack portion of the thread drawn out between the eye of the needle and the cloth may be pushed or pressed against such cutter and be severed. This cutting-edge may be formed by reducing the needle-shank or bring ing it to an edge, or forming an edge thereon, as shown in the drawings, Figs. 1, 2, and 3, or in any other suitable manner, so as to present a cutting-edge.

Instead of making the edge sharp and smooth, it may be made as a sickle-edge, as in Fig. 3. The shanks of some needles are of greater diameter than their bodies, as shown in Fig. l; but other ordinary sewing-machine needles are of the same diameter, body and shank. In this latter class the cutting-edge (I may be made to project, as in Fig. 5;.

Instead of forming the outterd directly upon the needle, itmay be formed upon a small collar, f, Fig. 4, which may be forced upon the needlebody, and thereafter form a portion of it; or the needle may be grooved or slotted to receive in it a thin cutting-blade, as in Fig. 6. The shank may be notched to form the cuttingedge, as in Fig. 7. Theshank may have one or more cutting-edges.

Thread-cutters have been commonly used in connection with sewing-machine needle-bars, throat-plates, and presser-feet but never before this has a thread-cutter been made as a permanent part of the needle.

I claim-- As an improved article of manufacture, a sewing-machine needle provided at or near its shank with a thread-cutting edge, to operate substantially as and for the purpose described.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

AUGUSTUS C. CAREY.

Witnesses:

G. W. GREGORY, L. A. BAXTER. 

